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Nursery thrives thanks to the fruits of their labor

Dave Wilson Nursery is the nation’s largest wholesale grower of fruit trees for the home gardener.

They say if you grow it, they will come, and at the Dave Wilson Nursery in Hickman, farmers and home gardeners alike have been coming for more than 70 years. Here, they are all about one thing: fruit. And a lot of it. From the home garden to commercial orchards, from the backyard to the produce aisle, they are dedicated to providing only the very best fruit to the consumer. It’s a belief that Dave Wilson himself stood by when he opened the small nursery way back in 1938.

Today, the Dave Wilson Nursery has grown to become the nation’s largest wholesale grower of fruit trees for the home gardener. But how do they come up with all of those fruit trees to grow? Well, with a little help from local legend and one of the world’s foremost fruit breeders, Floyd Zaiger who has cultivated many new fruits over the years, including the pluot and aprium to name a few.

The nursery also provides tree stock for farmers in some of the states biggest commodities including almonds, cherries, peaches, prunes and walnuts. Nearby Farmer Ted Loewen of Blossom Bluff Orchards in Parlier, depends on the nurseries’ innovations to keep his 75-acre farm afloat each year with new trees to be planted.

In addition to keeping farmers in tune with the newest fruits on the market, the nursery also conducts what they call “blind” fruit tastings. They invite nursery people and others to taste fruit without knowing what types of fruits or varieties they will be sampling. The ratings are then available to the retail garden centers to help them choose varieties that are exceptionally good flavored to then pass along to eager customers like you and I.

And by exposing the public to flavorful fruit, those at the Dave Wilson Nursery hope to influence consumer choices whether it is at the grocery store or in their own home garden and that it will raise expectations about what great fruit should always taste like!